


Apricot Marmalade

by samcat



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Arguing, Established Relationship, Fighting, M/M, don't worry it has a nice ending, some drinking, vague descriptions of childhood abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-11-14 13:06:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11208678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samcat/pseuds/samcat
Summary: Jim and Sebastian are both in their mid 20’s. Jim has started his criminal empire and is already on top of the game. And with a romantic and sexual relationship with one of his newest assassins, he’s feeling pretty content with the way his life is going.But when Sebastian is late home one night, he finds out that arguments and secrets are part of every relationship.Ft. unnamed nonbinary bartenders and cab driver side characters.





	Apricot Marmalade

**Author's Note:**

> The message that prompted this fic:  
>  _"Okay Jim and Sebastian arguing and when Jim raises his hand Sebastian flinches and not in a good way. It turns out that his father had did more than 'discipline' Sebastian. You can if you want to, write a little fic of this."_

Jim was pacing around the flat, impatiently waving his hands by his sides as we walked. The sound of the rain smattering on the windows only served to emphasize his annoyance.

He was prepared to give Sebastian a proper shouting to when he got home. He had never been late before; in fact, he was one of the few employees Jim had ever had that hadn’t needed a bit of threatening to conform to his standards. He had been everything he wanted right from the start.

And that included never being late.

Jim would be lying if he said he wasn’t at least a little bit worried because of it. He didn’t believe Sebastian would ever be late by choice. Or even by inconvenience. He knew that he had more respect for Jim than that, so he knew that the only reason for his tardiness would be that something had gone wrong.

Continuing to pace, he ran through a mental list of all of the things that could have gone wrong with the plan that Sebastian had done his part in tonight. Then he narrowed it down to the things that could have caused Sebastian to be late. The second list was significantly shorter, while simultaneously being significantly more worrying.

Sebastian knew how to handle himself in almost any possible situation, Jim knew that, too. So theorizing about the situations where he couldn’t? That was something that only served to bring up nightmarish scenarios in his mind.

He muttered a long string of curse words under his breath, trying to focus on his own voice rather than the gruesome images in his head. But it didn’t help much.

-

Later, unaware of exactly how much time had passes and having paces his way into a different room, Jim finally heard the door open and close, followed by the steady steps he recognized as Sebastian’s.

A part of him wanted to run at him, throw his arms around him and welcome him home, happy to see him alive. Happy to know that the worst of the scenarios that had played inside his head hadn’t happened in reality. But their relationship hadn’t involved anything close to that kind of affection so far. And his annoyance quickly shifted to anger now that the worry was no longer looming over him.

“Where the _fuck_ have you been?” Jim walked out of the bedroom to face him.  
Sebastian raised his hands in the air. “I didn’t choose to be late, Jim. Shit happened.”  
“Yeah, I fucking figured that m-” Jim stopped in the middle of a step when he saw him. “What the hell happened to you?”

Sebastian’s jaw, hair and clothes were all covered in half-dried blood and there were bruises visibly starting to form at practically every inch of his skin that Jim could see.

“Me and a couple of other drivers had a run in with a truck on an intersection on my way home,” Sebastian said.  
“Christ, what are you, the fucking terminator?” Jim eyed him from head to toe. “Blood and bruises a plenty, but you’re not even limping?”  
“Guess some of your irish luck must have rubbed off on me last time we fucked.”  
“Ha-ha,” Jim frowned at him. “Can you be serious for five seconds? I’ve been waiting for your for God knows how long and now you come back looking like _this_.”  
Sebastian shrugged and started moving towards the kitchen. “Try me.”

Jim sighed and walked after him. He rolled his eyes when he saw him wet a kitchen towel and start cleaning the blood off his face and head with it, but decided to save the complaining about the bloodstains until later. Bickering about kitchen hygiene was not at the top of his to-do list at the moment.

“Is there a reason for why you didn’t just text me and tell me you would be late?” Jim leaned against the counter close to Sebastian and folded his arms over his chest.  
“Yeah, the whole getting hit by a truck thing kinda smashed my phone to pieces.”  
“Your reckless arse has lost phones before. That hasn’t stopped you from stealing someone else’s and reaching me through that,” Jim reached around Sebastian and turned the faucet off. “Was there a shortage of pedestrians on the streets today or what?”

Sebastian put the towel down and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Okay look, I fucked up the mission and I didn’t want to have you shouting my ears off all the way home. My head is pounding enough as it is without your help.”  
“What the hell do you mean by fucking up the mission?” Jim’s voice was loud enough to make Sebastian grimace in pain.  
“ _I mean_ I was ambushed and I made a mistake and missed the shot, and then I had to leg it out of there before _I_ got shot. And I was still pretty fucking tense after that shit afterwards,” he ran a hand through his still-bloody hair and stared Jim in the eye. “And that’s part of the reason why I didn’t see a fucking truck coming at me until it was too late.”  
“Since when do you ever miss shots?” Jim shouted. “And you’re telling me you almost got killed _twice_ today and you _still_ didn’t think you should have called me?”  
“I was too focused on trying to survive to think about phone calls, I guess,” Sebastian snapped back at him.  
“Don’t use that fucking tone when talking to me.”  
“I almost died! Twice!”  
“Do you have any clue, any clue what so ever, how much extra work I’ll have to do to get us another chance to take him out? I’ve already wasted the whole evening pacing around worrying about you and now I’ve got to waste even more time to fix this mess!”

The argument continued to escalate and when Sebastian told Jim where he could shove his precious phone, Jim raised his his hand to slap him. It wasn’t an unusual thing for Jim to do; every now and then he’d get an employee that needed to be taught their place. But to his surprise, Sebastian immediately silenced and recoiled before he had had a chance to hit him.

Jim raised his eyebrows at him as he watched fear wash over his face. Sebastian was trying his best to hide his reaction, of course, but Jim knew his face well enough to be able to see right through him.

And Sebastian quickly realized this too. And as soon as he did, he spun around and stormed out of the flat.

“Sebastian!” Jim shouted after him, without getting a reaction.

Furious over having had a door slammed in his face and the unfinished argument, but also confused and curious over what had caused that reaction, Jim grabbed his coat and walked out after him.

The rain was still pouring down outside. A car drove past just as Jim stepped out through the door and he had to jump sideways to avoid getting splashed.

He cursed loudly at the car while he looked around. Sebastian seemed to have vanished into thin air. Exactly _how_ he could have vanished so quickly was beyond him - getting his coat from the hanger hadn’t delayed him for more than a few seconds, but apparently that was all that the sniper had needed to disappear.

He ran a hand over his face as he stood there, slowly getting soaked, unsure of what to do.

He considered just going back inside and waiting for Sebastian to return. He would have to come home sooner or later; if nothing else, he would need to meet up with Jim again to get a new phone and a new mission once his latest paycheck was spent.

But he didn’t have the patience for that.

Instead, he hailed a cab and got in. He knew the pubs Sebastian usually frequented, so he figured he might as well check the ones that were nearby.

While other people might feel discouraged from going out in public covered in blood, Jim knew that that wouldn’t deter Sebastian. He knew several of the bartenders around here personally and Jim suspected that they would let Sebastian use their showers and give him a set of spare clothes without hesitation or questions before even starting to sell him drinks.

The first bar he got to was, surprisingly, closed down. He spent a minute wandering around it to make sure it wasn’t just a facade. He knew the people who ran it had had a history of getting into trouble, although not with him, so pretending to be out of business may have become a necessity in order to avoid a confrontation. But as far as he could tell, it was legitimately shut down. And had seemingly been so for quite some time.

He returned to the cab and gave the driver the next address, hoping that that would be a place that was still up and running. He also pulled out his phone and made a note in it to update his information about London’s pubs, as the knowledge he thought he had had was inexcusably outdated.

Thankfully, the next pub was indeed open.

He told the cab driver to wait outside. He didn’t know how long he would be in there, but it didn’t matter to him. A cab bill was not something that was going to make a noticeable dent in his accounts, no matter how long it took.

Inside, loud music was playing and even louder people were talking to each other. Or trying to, at least; the most frequently used word seemed to be ‘what?’.

Remembering Sebastian’s headache, he doubted that he would be here. But then again, the man knew how to handle pain. And suffering through this noise would be no issue for him if he already had some alcohol in him.

He looked around the place. Most of the people in here seemed to be about his age, while some were a bit older. Not the most hip club in London, he concluded, but also not an unpopular one.

Sebastian was nowhere to been seen, though.

He walked over to the bartender and waited quietly. It took a long couple of seconds before they recognised him, but when they did they hurried over to him.

“Moriarty, sir. Good evening. What can I get you?” Their voice was shaking slightly.  
“Have you seen Seb tonight?”  
“Who?”  
Jim rolled his eyes and got out his phone. “Here,” he showed them a picture. “Him. Has he been here recently?”  
“Oh yeah, him. Um, no. It’s been a few weeks since he was here last.”  
“You sure?”  
“Yeah. Sorry. Should I let you know if he comes in?”  
“No,” Jim sighed. “I’ll find him.”  
“Okay,” they shifted awkwardly from foot to foot where they stood. “Can I help with something else? Sure I can’t get you a drink or something?”  
Jim gave them a faint smile. “Maybe next time.”

He would have to give this kid a gold star in his book for their eagerness to serve. He just wished they would have been able to offer something that’d actually be useful. Because if Seb wasn’t here now, he doubted he would come here later. As relatively nice as this place was, it didn’t seem like the kind of place you go to after you’d already gotten drunk someplace else.

The next pub he got to didn’t have Sebastian in it either, nor the one after that.

The cab driver didn’t seem to think what he was doing, diving in and out of different pubs like this, was odd. Or if they did, they didn’t let it show. Jim made sure to memorize the person’s face and the car’s number plate because of that. People who won’t ask questions were always an appreciated additional resource for him.

When they arrived to the next pub, Jim didn’t even need to tell the driver to wait for him. They just raised their hand to signal that they already knew what he was going to say, picked up their phone and opened a puzzle game app.

Jim decided to let that disrespect slide for now and walked into the pub with quick steps. He was losing more hope and more patience for every minute that went by. Sebastian could be _anywhere_ by now, he knew that, so only focusing on nearby places like this was becoming more and more pointless the more time that passed.

This pub was significantly less pleasant than the previous ones he had visited. It was poorly lit, the air was dank and clammy and the people who were sitting in here looked like they had lived their entire lives in this place; with skin so pale and oily and with eyes so dark and tired, they looked like they had never once seen sunlight or breathed fresh air.

He tried to not visibly frown at the people he walked past as he approached the bartender.

She was in the middle of a conversation with one of the men who were sitting at the bar and drinking; a conversation she seemed very disinterested in. When she saw Jim, she instantly turned to him with a smile, dropping the previous conversation without hesitation. The other man was obviously angered by this, but she didn’t seem to care. Or maybe she just didn’t notice.

She hadn’t seen Sebastian either, but it took a long while for Jim to pry that information out of her. She repeatedly went on tangents about other customers, about previous times Sebastian has been there, about her boss and her coworkers, about anything at all.

But at last he did manage to get a clear answer from her.

“So, you’re sure he hasn’t been around tonight?”  
“No. I’m sure, I would know. He’s easy to recognize, almost as easy as you. You both have that aura around you, that ‘I’m more important than everyone else in the room’ thing, you know? I wouldn’t have missed him if he came in here, especially not if he looked like you said! But I guess it wouldn’t be the first time he came in here looking like a total wreck,” she shook her head. “That man is so charming, but he won’t be able to use that to much good if he gets himself killed.”  
“Alright,” Jim held up his hands to signal her to stop talking. “Thank you, dear, that’s all I wanted to know.”  
“No problem, darling,” she winked at him, not noticing his annoyance.

“Oi,” the man she had been talking to before suddenly stood up. “How come he gets a ‘darling’ in return when you told me to ‘quit it’ or I’d ‘get thrown out’ when I was being nice to you?” He took a wobbly step forward to close the short distance that had been between he and Jim. “What’s so good about this pudgy wimp,” he gave Jim a hard push that forced him to take a step backwards. “Don’t fucking tell me _that_ is your type.”

Jim, seething, quickly weighed the reasons for and against getting into a physical fight with this man. And the look of fear on the bartender's face, as well as the total apathy of the other people in the room, was enough to push it in favour of doing it.

While Jim may be a bit short and pudgy, he was not weak. His appearance even worked in his favour in fights some of the time, as he was often underestimated and was able to take advantage of the element of surprise.

Combining that together with the built up frustration over not having been able to find Sebastian, Jim was an explosive force.

He took no more one hard punch to his own face before he was able to knock the other man to the floor. The other man’s drunken state didn’t do much to benefit him either. It didn’t take much to knock him down, as he was barely able to keep his balance even when he was not being attacked.

Once he was down, another person appeared from behind the bar. He must have been a bouncer of some sort, Jim figured, because he was able to pull the man up by his collar and usher him out of the pub in just a few seconds. He then turned to Jim and was about to get him to leave as well before recognising who he was and immediately flicking his gaze away to someplace else, trying to pretend that he hadn’t been about to throw him out.

“Don’t worry, I’m leaving,” Jim said. He looked over at the barkeeper and nodded at her. She gave him a forced smile in return before turning away to serve another customer.

Back in the cab again, Jim sighed and leaned back hard against the seat. His face hurt and he could virtually feel a black eye forming. He felt no desire to spend any more time among drunken strangers for a foreseeable future. But there were only two more pubs nearby that were open at this hour, so he figured he may as well visit them too, even though his hopes for finding Sebastian were practically null at this point.

-

The sun has just started to rise when Jim turned back onto the street where their flat was. It had stopped raining, thankfully, so he could allow himself to walk slowly.

The cab driver had been very grateful for their pay, and for the liberal tips, but they had still been concerned when Jim told them he would walk home. But after spending a few minutes assuring them that yes, he would be fine, yes, even without their directions, they had let him go without trying to force him to let them drive him.

He was exhausted, but a walk was what he needed right now in order to sort through the thoughts in his mind. And the cold morning air was helping him keep himself awake.

He hadn’t been able to find Sebastian in the last pubs he had visited either. And after having exhausted himself searching for so long, he really hadn’t expected to find Sebastian sitting in the corner just inside the door when he walked into their apartment building, curled up with a bottle of whiskey. But there he was.

“There you are,” Jim’s voice was hoarse and tired. “I’ve been out looking for you, you know.”  
“Yeah…,” he shrugged. “Figured. And now you found me. Congrats.”

He was indeed wearing different clothes than the ones he had worn when he stormed off; his own blood-stained clothes had been replaced by a hoodie and a pair of sweatpants that were several sizes too large for him.

“How drunk are you, exactly?” Jim leaned against the wall next to him. Looking down at him, he saw that Sebastian’s eyes were unusually red. “Too drunk to go back to unjustly shouting at me?”  
“Hah, sure. I was being so unjust.”  
“Still not too drunk to be mad though, apparently.”  
“Oh, you noticed that, did you?”  
Jim bit back a sour reply and let himself slide down the wall to sit next to Sebastian on the hard floor. He didn’t want to see him storm off again. And although it seemed like an unlikely thing to happen, he saw no reason to risk it.

They sat in silence for a few long minutes, Sebastian staring at the bottle and Jim staring at his shoes. The silence was bothering Jim, but he didn’t know how to break it without getting into another argument. And sitting down, he was realising exactly how little energy he had left after having been out all night, running around London searching for Sebastian. Trying to argue right now would not be good for either of them, Jim knew that. It would only result in mindless shouting.

As if sensing Jim’s discomfort, Sebastian handed over the bottle to him. He accepted it, took a swig and grimaced. “You couldn’t get anything better than this?”  
“I wasn’t really feeling picky.”  
“Mmh,” Jim handed the bottle back to him. “Why are you sitting down here, anyway?”  
“Lost my keys.”  
“Of course.”  
Sebastian snorted at him, but didn’t say anything more about it. Jim smiled and hoped that that meant he also wanted to avoid getting into another fight.

“So do you want to tell me what’s going on with you?” Jim broke the silence again, trying to keep his voice non-confrontational. “This isn’t something I expected from you.”  
“‘This’?”  
“Storming off, being unlocatable, drinking alone in a corner while crying your eyes out-”  
“I’m not crying.”  
“You clearly have been,” Jim pointed at his own eyes. “All red.”  
Sebastian opened his mouth to respond, but closed it again when he looked closer at Jim’s face. And remembering the minor pub fight he had been in earlier, Jim regretted having drawn attention to his eyes.  
“What happened to your face?”  
“Not everyone I talked to when I was looking for you were in a helpful mood,” Jim said and swallowed hard. He knew that Sebastian didn’t approve of him fighting his own fights like this; even though he had been hired as a sniper, he had more or less appointed himself as Jim’s personal body guard.  
“Great,” Sebastian frowned. “Get yourself beat up a bit more, why don’t you. Make sure you make me feel bad for not being there to protect you.”  
“Wouldn’t have happened in the first place if you weren’t here hiding in a corner, crying like a little baby,” Jim snapped at him, forgetting that he was trying to avoid an argument.

Sebastian stood up, placing one hand on the wall for support.  
“Where do you think I should have been sitting crying, then, huh?” His voice was not quite cracking, but close to it. “Hiding in some pub backroom?”  
Jim looked up at him in surprise. “That’s not what I meant,” he slowly stood up too. “And you know that. You haven’t just been sitting here crying all night either, have you? Don’t tell me I was turning all your pubs upside-down while you were just sitting here.”  
“No,” Sebastian’s voice softened a bit. “I was stalking between a few other places because I knew you’d send out word for people to look for me. Didn’t think you’d go out looking for me yourself, though.”  
Jim smiled carefully and nodded at him to continue, which he did.  
“But that just got boring and tiring when I got tipsy, so I grabbed a bottle when a barkeep wasn’t looking and walked back here. Didn’t realize I’d lost my keys until I was already back here, though, and I wasn’t gonna go back searching for them.”  
“So you just sat down here and cried until I came home to let you in.”  
Sebastian did a sweeping motion towards him with the bottle he was holding. “My knight in shining armor. Can we go inside now?”  
“More like a lost puppy and its owner. But sure,” he shrugged and pulled out the keys from his pocket. “I’m about to fall asleep standing here, so I’ll be heading straight to bed. Don’t believe that we’re done talking, though,” he walked inside and let Sebastian follow behind him. “We’ll continue in the morning. I still have questions.”  
Sebastian hummed out a wordless reply and went to lay down on the couch, evidently feeling just as tired as Jim. Although with the added bonus of being drunk as well. Jim almost felt sorry for him, but right now there was nothing he could do other than to let him rest.

-

At breakfast, and a very late breakfast at that, the two of them were sitting together in the sofa and watching TV while they ate their toast.

A news show started and among the first stories they covered was one about a car crash on an intersection from yesterday, involving a large truck and several cars.  
“Christ,” Jim said under his breath as he watched the havoc. And sure enough, among the panicked and the hurt people in the security camera footage they showed, he could catch a glimpse of a roughly Sebastian-sized shape in a corner of the screen, hurrying away from the rest of the crowd.  
“How did nobody notice you? Are people really that inattentive?” he looked at Sebastian. The bruises from yesterday, covering both his face and arms, had darkened significantly by now. “I would have thought you’d get cornered by some medical personnel and herded into an ambulance in a situation like that.”  
“It was pretty chaotic,” Sebastian said and took a bite of his toast. “And I know how to disappear when I need to.”  
“Yeah, I’ve noticed.”  
“It’s a skill,” he smiled at him. “And part of the reason you hired me in the first place, if I remember right. So I don’t get why you’re acting surprised.”  
“I hired you for your skill to hide _for_ me, not _from_ me. And honestly, I hadn’t expected you to be able to do the latter,” Jim pushed the last bite of his toast into his mouth and reached for another slice. “But you proved me wrong there. Pass the marmalade, will you.”  
Sebastian handed him the jar and Jim added a generous amount from it onto his toast.

“So,” Jim said with his mouth full. “Do you feel like telling me what yesterday was about?”  
“Which part?”  
“The part that caused you to run off like a terrified child.”  
“Ah,” Sebastian shifted. “That part.”  
“What about a slap is so terrifying to you, when you can deal with being hit by a fucking truck and just carry on as normal?”  
Sebastian was quiet for a while, darting his eyes around the room to find something else than Jim to look at while he spoke. He eventually settled on just staring straight ahead at the TV and took a deep breath.  
“You already know I come from a, uh, pretty rough upbringing.”  
“Yeah,” Jim said. “I saw that practically everyone in your family had a criminal record when I first looked you up. And pretty consistently updating records, at that.”  
“Right. But there’s a lot of stuff that isn’t in the records, too,” he licked his lips. “Stuff done by my dad, mostly. He, uh, took disciplining his kids to a pretty dark level.”

Jim folded up his legs under him and turned towards Sebastian, giving him his full attention.  
Sebastian kept staring at the TV.

“He was pretty creative with punishments, I guess. But not very consistent. We never knew what would set him off, really. And not how he would punish us either,” Sebastian swallowed. “But it always started with a slap to the face. Hard enough to send me and my siblings fucking flying to the floor, sometimes.”

Jim was silent, observing the emotions play over Sebastian’s face, unsure of if he was supposed to say something or if he wanted to continue talking himself.

Sebastian took another deep breath and sighed before he carried on. “I can deal with the rest of the shit he did to me, to us, without really going out of control, because most of it was just a one time thing. But,” he grimaced. “Not the… slapping. That still gets to me.”  
“Yeah, I noticed,” Jim said.  
“Mhm. Guess I should say sorry for yesterday.”  
“You should’ve called me before you got home. But apology accepted,” Jim gave him a quick smile. “I was a bit of a prick as well.”  
“You were.”  
Jim laughed. “Fine. I’m sorry, too.”  
“Apology accepted,” Sebastian said, mimicking Jim’s accent.  
Jim gave his shoulder a hard push. “I do _not_ sound like that!”  
Sebastian grinned at him, pleased with himself over having lightened the mood. But he suspected that Jim wouldn’t let go of the topic of his abuse just yet.

And he was right, because after another small silence, the next thing out of Jim’s mouth was a question.  
“Do you think you’ll ever get over it?”  
“I don’t know,” Sebastian slowly let the grin fade from his face. “I don’t know. It’s not like I haven’t tried, but nothing’s ever worked.”  
“Well, it’s going be a disadvantage, if you were to get captured,” Jim said and unfolded his legs again. “A slap to the face is usually part of the very beginning of any interrogation, so if they could break you that easily...”  
“I know, I know,” Sebastian shook his head. “I’ll just have to avoid getting caught, I guess.”  
Jim hummed, clearly not satisfied with the answer. But he didn’t have an easy solution to this problem at hand.

They finished watching the show that had started on the TV while they’d been talking and then got up to get on with their days.

Jim walked into the bedroom to make a phone call while Sebastian gathered up their dishes and took it out to the kitchen. He could hear Jim, indistinctly, while he put their leftover toasts in the trash and started loading the dishwasher.

Halfway through the task, he zoned out a bit and started thinking about how long it had been since he last tried to deal with his trauma. ‘Deal with’, he frowned at his own thoughts, but wasn’t sure if there was a better phrase for it. Jim was right - if something happened and he got caught, it would be disastrous if he could be brought to pieces with just a slap to the face. Or even just the threat of it.

While he was busy inside his mind, Jim had finished the phone call and had walked out to join him in the kitchen. Jim watched him stare blankly out the window for a long moment, a cup in his hand, hovering near the open dishwasher, before speaking.  
“You ok, tiger?”  
Sebastian flinched and blinked, trying to get his eyes back in focus. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just thinking.”  
“Don’t get me wrong, I’d love it if you did that more often. But do you have to look so creepy while you do it?”  
“Sorry,” he put the cup down. “I’ll avoid thinking while you’re around.”  
Jim laughed and nudged him, pulling a smile across Sebastian’s face as well.

“Anyhow,” Jim handed him a couple of sheets of paper and a new phone. “Here’s something for you to do this week. It’s something I’ve been putting off for a while, but I thought you might appreciate something a little less risky for your next mission.”  
“Thanks,” Sebastian murmured while he skimmed through the papers.  
“And text me regularly,” Jim added. “I want-”  
“You want to know I’ve not gotten hit by another truck.”  
“Or had a repeat of last night.”  
“Alright,” Sebastian looked down at the floor and put the phone in his jeans pocket. Folding the papers more times than necessary, he looked back up at Jim. “About that, could you, uh,” he closed his mouth and clenched his jaw, unsure of how to word his request. “Do you know any therapist we can trust?”  
Jim pursed his lips while he thought about it. “I know a few, but I don’t know if they’re going to be compatible with you.”  
“Worth a try, isn’t it?”  
“If you want,” Jim smiled. “I didn’t think you would be so eager.”  
“Me neither, but I don’t think waiting for a better time to do it is going to fix anything.”  
“No guarantee a therapist will fix anything, either.”  
“I know,” Sebastian sighed. “But I think it’s worth letting them try.”

They discussed it for a long while. Jim went and brought up the files he had about the therapists he trusted and gave Sebastian a vague briefing on the future missions he had planned for him, in order to get an idea of when he would be able to take time away for therapy. Sebastian picked out one of the therapists from the files and hummed along to what Jim was saying, focusing more on figuring out how he would explain his situation to the therapist rather than on Jim’s words.

They eventually agreed on a date for when he should have his first meeting with the therapist. Jim would make all of the arrangements, everything from scheduling the meeting to hiring a driver (“I met an excellent cab driver just yesterday when I was out looking for you”).

Jim took the spoon from the jar of marmalade that was still sitting on the counter and licked it.  
“Try to go back to being home on time now, okay?”  
Sebastian smiled at his sing-songy voice and nodded. “Will do, boss.”

He walked out of the flat, feeling good, even with his body aching with bruises. He wasn’t sure if the therapy would actually help or not. In fact a large part of him doubted it would, but that was not what was influencing his mood. As emotional as last night had been, it felt good to have Jim know about this part of his past.

Since he wasn’t in a rush and wasn’t quite feeling up to driving, he decided to take the tube to where he was going. Leaning against the pole he was holding, he felt his new phone buzz with a text message alert. 

_‘Buy a new kitchen towel on the way home xoxo’_


End file.
